Durleigh Reservoir - Clevedon Club Match (vs Fys)

Well what a sunny 'summer' we seem to be having, good for the tan, not so good for the fishing.
Thursday's evening match at Sedges was dire for most, the fish just lounging on the surface not doing much.

However onto today's match, which was at Durleigh Reservoir, a venue I had not match fished (or in fact not carp fished) for years and years. Despite only living a mile or 2 from the venue, I have found it increasingly popular with the carp angling fraternity, there are loads of hard fighting carp to over 20lb in the reservoir. They regard the large head of bream as a pain, they do get caught on boilies etc with regular occurrence.
I had ordered an RCT rigger platform, which was due to me on the Friday past, but it didn't arrive, so after a bit of a search to try and get one for today, I managed to wangle one from Shawn Kitteridge, thanks mate. Mine will be with me on Tuesday.

Weather today was warm and sunny, a breeze blowing from the NE into the lodge bank and down the ressie. I arrived at the lodge around 20 mins before the draw and all the talk was about the carp being weighed as 3lb each, that and Rod Wootton's considerable size, he was becoming disillusioned with the fact you can drive to the pegs, and that pellet shallow wont usually win you much.......

The draw was called at 9am-ish, there would be 3 sections, C--section being the far bank section from the life buoy to the dam wall/lawns swim (p7-p1 left to right as you look across).
B--section would be p8 (just past the race hut) to p15 which was just past the point swim.
A--section was the long grassy swims toward the far end of the lodge bank, pegs 16-22.

Into the hat goes my hand, out comes peg 12, on the lodge bank. Not too bad I thought, but I did have to walk past the swim, down the slope at peg 16-ish and back along the stones to my peg.

View from my peg - at the end of the match

 

 

When I got to my peg I decided that I wouldn't fish the pole, so set up a 5m whip, a waggler (remained unused), a method feeder rod (8lb line to 0.22 and size 14 hook) and a standard groundbait feeder rod (4lb mainline >12" of 0.14 matchteam to a size 16 B520)

Bait would be mainly hemp, caster, maggot and some groundbait (50/50 noire and sensas lake for the whip and feeder, sensas method mix for the method rod). I also had a bunch of worms as change hookbait along with some 8mm pellet and 8mm boilies for the method rod.

 

Some of the guys had set up in a semi-specimen way, targeting the carp and bigger bream with scaled down carp tactics, ie method feeder, boilies and pellets.

Others had gone traditional with worm/caster/maggots through an open-end feeder.

 

The all in sounded at 10:30 and to my right came a barrage of balls of groundbait being fired to a marker, I think it was Andy Hembrow. Adie Baker on the end peg had also fired some balls out as well. Those first pegs are deeper and hold carp and bream all year round, but there are a few snags to boot.

 

I started on the open-end feeder with maggot on the hook, immediately I was getting taps and knocks, and soon had a little roach in the net, I had fed the whip line too with hemp/caster, as this line can do really good bags of roach. After 20 mins I had given up on the feeder, I was getting taps/knocks on the drop, whatever hookbait I tried resulted in small fish.

Onto the whip, I had put a small 2bb Drennan on the rig, and had 4.5ft of depth, line was 0.12>0.10>size 18 b520 hook. Immediately I had bites on the drop and a succession of roach were hooked, though a few were falling off.

I stayed on the whip for the next 5 hours, only trying the feeder rods when I needed to rest the swim or had to make a new whip rig (which I did twice thanks to the shot pinching the line too much and breaking it). The reason for this was the lack of activity of substance by the 2 Frys anglers each side of me, they were only having the odd skimmer and were getting 'bitted out'.

The few spells I did have on the tip rods resulted in a few more roach (one took a 8mm boilie on the method), a skimmer of a pound on the boilie and a lost skimmer of a couple pounds, which came when I wasn't watching the rod, it took 3 hair-rigged worms on the method rod!!

 

I was getting a fish a chuck all on the drop, usually in the top 6" of water, as was Paul Faiers on peg 15, Jonny Page on p14 was getting a fish a chuck and the angler on peg 16, all on the whip/short pole. Meanwhile Andy Hembrow had landed a carp and a few bream, Adie had 1 carp and a couple bream.

I found that the fish were taking really shallow, and could be seen swirling at the loose feed, I couldn't get my rig to the deck, but I was happy and continued catching.

If bites tailed off or the fish got too small I found a tennis ball sized lump of groundbait helped bring them back, continually feeding hemp and caster in smallish quantities. When I fed heavier it made no difference given the amount of roach present.

 

The all out sounded and the roach were still lined up.....

I packed away and waited for the scales, Andy Hembrow had weighed 34lb inc 1 carp and a few bream, I though I maybe had 20lb, I thought that Jonny Page had 20lb too and Paul Faiers a bit more.

Onto the scales goes my net.......30lb 8oz, nice. But as it turned out it was the first of a bulk of weights from my peg upwards.....Jonny Page weighed 28lb+ of mostly roach, Paul had 39lb of similar and then there were more good nets of fish. The bream had shown from the pegs just after the point.

 

As it turned out the venue had fished well.

 

Results:

1st - James Gunther - 58lb 4oz - p5 (mixed catch bream/roach)

2nd - Merv Sivell - 52lb 4oz - p1 (roach catch!!)

3rd - Warren Bates - 44lb 12oz - p18 (mostly roach and maybe a bream I think?)

4th - Derrick Coles - 42lb 7oz - p16 (roach catch I believe)

5th - Paul Faiers - 39lb - p15 (roach!!)

6th - Rob Fogg - 37lb 20z - p18 (roach? odd bream?)

 

Weigh Boards

 

 

So all in all I was pleased with how I fished, but a bit annoyed as I dropped/bumped maybe 5lb of fish when swinging them in, but both Jonny and Paul suffered this too. Maybe a soft elastic kit would have helped?

Also I wish I had/bought a 2 or 3 metre whip as I could see them swirling at the feed, even when I fed too short. This may have resulted in more fish landed. The roach were maybe averaging 2oz each, odd bonus one to 6oz, which seemed to come really shallow.

 

It is not too often you fish matches with the roach weights we saw today and it was obvious who had caught well for them as they ended up a mess.

 

Covered in roach slime - Nice!!

 

I have another match on Durleigh in a few weeks, but next up for me is a match on Saturday on Viaduct Campbell, then the same venue on Sunday on  either Cary or Campbell.

 

I may have a few hours somewhere on Monday or Tuesday evening if I am in the mood.  Plus I have Thursday on Sedges Tile lake.

 

Until next time, Take Care

 

Lee